Speaker 1: In the studio with me now is the executive director
Speaker 1: of an organization that I want you to pay attention
Speaker 1: to because we've talked about on the show before that Colorado,
Speaker 1: like it or not, is a pro choice state.
Speaker 2: Okay, full stop.
Speaker 1: There's no polling day to the shows that it is
Speaker 1: anything but a majority pro choice state. Does that mean
Speaker 1: if your pro life you should just throw in the
Speaker 1: towel and just call it a day.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: But it means that any time energy or effort you
Speaker 1: spend trying to limit abortion in Colorado is going to
Speaker 1: be wasted.
Speaker 2: The only way to.
Speaker 1: Limit abortion in Colorado is to give women an alternative
Speaker 1: that would support them in a pregnancy that maybe they
Speaker 1: were not prepared for. And that's why I have Ashley
Speaker 1: Graves in the studio with me right now from Alternatives
Speaker 1: Pregnancy Center.
Speaker 2: First of all, Ashley, welcome to the show. Thank you
Speaker 2: very much. I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to have you, and I honestly vaguely
Speaker 1: familiar with the Alternatives Pregnancy Center, mostly because things that
Speaker 1: listeners have sent me. We have people that are listening audience,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of pro choice people are at
Speaker 1: our listening audience. We have a lot of pro life
Speaker 1: people in our listening audience, and even I would think
Speaker 1: that a vast majority of the pro choice people in
Speaker 1: this listening audience would love to think that when truly
Speaker 1: do have a choice right, that it's not just the
Speaker 1: choice part only means choosing an abortion. So tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about what Alternatives Pregnancy Center does what
Speaker 1: you provide, and not just about abortion.
Speaker 2: You guys do a whole bunch of stuff. Tell me
Speaker 2: about that absolutely.
Speaker 3: So we walk beside women and men that find themselves
Speaker 3: in the complexity of an unplaned pregnancy. And like our
Speaker 3: doctor's appointments are our nurse appointments, they're an hour long.
Speaker 3: When was the last time you went to a doctor
Speaker 3: and you got an hour long appointment? And we sit
Speaker 3: with them and we look at the whole human being,
Speaker 3: the whole person mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. What is
Speaker 3: going on? How can we walk with them? We show
Speaker 3: them there's other alternatives. We don't beat them into a decision,
Speaker 3: We love on them, We give them infirmation.
Speaker 2: The other thing that honestly.
Speaker 3: A lot of pro choice people have supported is we
Speaker 3: walk beside them till the baby's a year old. We
Speaker 3: do mentoring, We have fatherhood mentoring. Wow, like that's been huge.
Speaker 3: And then we also have counseling after abortion, and that
Speaker 3: those pieces, even pro choice people can't be upset about
Speaker 3: because we're still walking with these individuals.
Speaker 2: We don't drop them off.
Speaker 3: We still love on them, and if they choose to
Speaker 3: have an abortion, we still love them. We want them
Speaker 3: to have counseling, healing all of them.
Speaker 1: You have them to be making an informed choice, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and that is something And I've never had to make
Speaker 1: this decision, and I'm very grateful that I never found
Speaker 1: myself in this position. But boy do I know a
Speaker 1: lot of women that have found themselves in this position.
Speaker 1: And in my friend group, I have women who have
Speaker 1: made all different choices. I have had women who decided,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have this baby, I'm gonna keep this baby.
Speaker 1: I have friends who have decided I'm gonna have this
Speaker 1: baby and give it to a family that can provide
Speaker 1: about her home. And I have friends that have chosen
Speaker 1: to have an abortion. But what I find the most
Speaker 1: striking is that all of them, at some point have
Speaker 1: talked about that decision. And the two that actually gave
Speaker 1: birth to that baby. Have never regretted it. And I'm
Speaker 1: not saying every friend I have who's had an abortion
Speaker 1: regrets it. That would be inaccurate, that would be a lie.
Speaker 1: But the friends that have had it, more than one
Speaker 1: has said later that was the worst choice ever made, right,
Speaker 1: But they.
Speaker 3: Didn't feel like they had a choice, and they maybe
Speaker 3: didn't feel like there's someone to listen or someone to
Speaker 3: talk out the process with, or maybe even ten years
Speaker 3: down the road, did they find someone to talk with.
Speaker 3: I personally was counseled to abort my oldest child. She
Speaker 3: was testing high for Down syndrome right and we were
Speaker 3: at Texas Tech Medical Center and in genetic counseling, and
Speaker 3: she said, we're giving you this information and so you
Speaker 3: have the information in case you and to terminate their pregnancy.
Speaker 3: And my husband and I looked at her in complete shock.
Speaker 3: And then we go for the next set of testing.
Speaker 3: They offered us termination yet again. And if she would
Speaker 3: have been Down syndrome, we would have loved her completely
Speaker 3: and totally. That she has come out this genius and
Speaker 3: this amazing woman of like that we would have missed.
Speaker 3: We would have missed her voice.
Speaker 1: Because I was of advanced maternal age when I had
Speaker 1: my daughter, and my husband was five years older than
Speaker 1: I was. In our first meeting with our midwife, they said, okay,
Speaker 1: do you want to do genetic testing? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I in the course of this, if we
Speaker 1: find out there's something severely wrong, we can talk. But
Speaker 1: if we have a child with Down syndrome, we've already
Speaker 1: talked about it because we're older and we're okay with
Speaker 1: that and we don't want to hear about termination again.
Speaker 1: And our doctors, to their credit, said, no problem, marked
Speaker 1: it down, said we're not going to talk about this again.
Speaker 1: But there is a tremendous amount of pressure now and
Speaker 1: those tests are not always accurate.
Speaker 3: They are not they have and then I've heard recently
Speaker 3: they're like, ashulely, the tests are better. But a young
Speaker 3: woman that I've walked beside since she was fifteen years old,
Speaker 3: she in the last two years got a false positive
Speaker 3: and I'm like.
Speaker 2: They're not that much better. You can't just trust that information.
Speaker 1: So yeah, now, when someone comes to the Alternative's pregnancy Center,
Speaker 1: walk me through that process. I've always thought, and maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong about this, are people that tend to gravitate
Speaker 1: towards a place called Alternatives Pregnancy Center. Maybe they're already
Speaker 1: questioning if they're going to walk that path on abortion.
Speaker 1: Maybe they want to be talked out of it.
Speaker 2: Right? Is that accurate? Not always?
Speaker 3: Sometimes they come in very determined, like they have already
Speaker 3: made their mind.
Speaker 2: A they want an abortion, Okay.
Speaker 3: They come to us, We sit them down and we
Speaker 3: do a medical grade pregnancy test with our ns, and
Speaker 3: we talk through what's going on in your life right now?
Speaker 3: What are you feeling, what is happening? Why are you
Speaker 3: feeling anxiety about this right now? We find out a
Speaker 3: lot of information, and it's amazing how often we open
Speaker 3: the door for additional resources they didn't know they could get.
Speaker 3: We are experts on what's available in the counties and
Speaker 3: what resources are available to them.
Speaker 2: A lot of them.
Speaker 3: It may be I don't have housing, How can I
Speaker 3: have this baby?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Let us open the door to some organizations that can help.
Speaker 3: My partner is abusing me, How can I have this baby?
Speaker 3: We aren't experts on domestic violence, but we know who is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that is our goal to know who are the
Speaker 3: experts that can walk with these women and empower them
Speaker 3: so they don't feel so trapped.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people just in general don't recognize
Speaker 1: or realize how many organizations exist, and our organizations like
Speaker 1: you that can kind of act as a clearinghouse to
Speaker 1: help get over some of those big hurdles that people
Speaker 1: are expressing and truly giving them a choice.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what this is all about.
Speaker 3: Because they feel so trapped, right, I mean they feel
Speaker 3: trapped when they come to see us. Nine out of
Speaker 3: ten times, if you look at them and say you
Speaker 3: are not alone, We're here to walk beside you, immediately
Speaker 3: we see tears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they feel so alone. Right.
Speaker 3: We even help them role play on how to talk
Speaker 3: to their partner, how to talk to you. We had
Speaker 3: a situation on how to talk to their parents. We
Speaker 3: do role playing with them. We just give them the
Speaker 3: dedicated time they need to process this information. One other
Speaker 3: thing I didn't mention earlier is we do free STD
Speaker 3: testing for women as well and treatment, and we follow
Speaker 3: that up with STD counseling as well to kind of
Speaker 3: educate and be like, why do we keep getting in
Speaker 3: this situation?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: What's going on behind you? Coming to see us so often?
Speaker 3: Not ever a place from judgment. I can never judge anyone, right,
Speaker 3: but from a place of love and hope. And we
Speaker 3: want to help you find some answers.
Speaker 1: Right right, And you know, I mean ultimately in my mind.
Speaker 1: And I know it sounds a little patronizing, but helping
Speaker 1: someone learn how to make better decisions when they've been
Speaker 1: making the same wrong decision over and over and over again,
Speaker 1: it's really a powerful medicine in and of itself. Yes,
Speaker 1: So do you guys also offer well women care and
Speaker 1: things of that nature?
Speaker 2: Or is this we are tilted towards it? Oh, we are.
Speaker 3: That is the long term goal. We are heading in
Speaker 3: that direction. But we are funded by individuals. I am
Speaker 3: over seventy five percent of our funding comes from individuals
Speaker 3: and churches. So we do not receive any state or
Speaker 3: federal funding and that makes it difficult. We have to
Speaker 3: fund raise.
Speaker 1: Why is that, without getting too deep into the weeds
Speaker 1: on politics stuff, why is it that you do choose
Speaker 1: not to take federal dollars because of the strings that
Speaker 1: may be attached, or is it federal dollars are not
Speaker 1: necessarily flowing towards organizations that are focused on life.
Speaker 3: Well, the second one, for sure, they don't have many
Speaker 3: flowing towards us. But secondly, a lot of times when
Speaker 3: we apply for those, the second they find out we're
Speaker 3: pro life, they don't want to work with us. And
Speaker 3: I would also say a lot of times there's a
Speaker 3: lot of hoops. I know some organizations that do receive
Speaker 3: federal and state funding and they actually have to hire
Speaker 3: another staff just to manage that, just for fulfillment.
Speaker 1: And then there's all kinds of every every piece of
Speaker 1: tax money that is given out comes with strings. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and maybe they're they're blatant strings, but maybe they are
Speaker 1: just pressure, or maybe they're pressure that doesn't even appear
Speaker 1: for years.
Speaker 2: Yes, right as.
Speaker 1: Things change or shift.
Speaker 2: What are you guys seeing?
Speaker 1: And mentioned it right at the beginning of the interview,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking right now with Ashley Graves from the
Speaker 1: Alternative's Pregnancy Center. Colorado is a staunchly pro choice state.
Speaker 1: They have indicated it over and over and over and
Speaker 1: over and over again at the ballot box.
Speaker 2: There's no question about it.
Speaker 1: So I have often told my listeners who are frustrated
Speaker 1: pro lifers who believe that a child is a child,
Speaker 1: no matter if it's a you know, little tiny zeyegoat
Speaker 1: child or a nine month old child that's ready to
Speaker 1: be born. This is the kind of stuff that I
Speaker 1: would love to have you direct your time and energy
Speaker 1: and your money to, because the only way to slow
Speaker 1: down the rate of abortion anywhere is to let women
Speaker 1: know that there are alternatives.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know, what are you guys seeing just on the
Speaker 1: landscape in terms of you know, do you feel like
Speaker 1: people's hearts are changing at all? Because I try to
Speaker 1: gauge it and it's so hard. I want to see
Speaker 1: the window that I want to see the world through.
Speaker 1: Right Where are you guys seeing this?
Speaker 3: I would say the younger generation behind us is looking
Speaker 3: at it. My daughter's generation, they're twenty and twenty five.
Speaker 3: They are seeing some of the after effects of abortion,
Speaker 3: and especially the chemical abortion, yeah, and the trauma that
Speaker 3: goes with that, and I think they're going to be
Speaker 3: the generation to speak up and go, this is not okay.
Speaker 3: This is actually doing more harm than good. And so
Speaker 3: that is definitely I think the generations that are getting
Speaker 3: more educated on the trauma. The abortion pill brings a
Speaker 3: lot of trauma with it, and we don't need to
Speaker 3: get to that, but it does.
Speaker 1: It's a very dramatic process, and people think it's no
Speaker 1: big deal. I'm going to take this, and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know what they think is going to happen,
Speaker 1: but it's a very dramatic process. It's not just a
Speaker 1: no big deal type thing as it's often made out
Speaker 1: to be. I don't know, So, Ashley, how did you
Speaker 1: get into this field?
Speaker 3: Honestly, I have always discipled young women. I've always walked
Speaker 3: beside young women. I don't have the prettiest testimony. I
Speaker 3: don't have the prettiest backstory, and there wasn't someone to
Speaker 3: walk with me. And so we ended up in an
Speaker 3: area and the pregnancy Resource center needed a director and
Speaker 3: my husband was the one that said, you have to
Speaker 3: apply for this. This is for young women, this is you.
Speaker 3: And that's what I love about what we do because
Speaker 3: to me, it's.
Speaker 2: Pro woman right, it's empowering women.
Speaker 3: And I was an executive director in Texas for over
Speaker 3: eight years and then I stepped out and became a
Speaker 3: consultant to pregnancy resource centers because we were losing so
Speaker 3: many leaders due to burnout, right exhaustion, all the things.
Speaker 3: And then a recruiter found me here for Denver and
Speaker 3: I'm never in a million years thought I would leave
Speaker 3: Texas for Denver, Colorado. But my husband and I have
Speaker 3: a saying you go until you get a no, and
Speaker 3: we just kept getting a yes after a yes. And
Speaker 3: now in September eleventh, they'll be here a full year.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic. That's absolutely fantastic. You know, when you are
Speaker 1: talking with young women, and you're obviously talking with young women,
Speaker 1: maybe not you directly, but the people you have a
Speaker 1: lot of different counselors and things of that nature. When
Speaker 1: you're talking to these young women. I mean, I can
Speaker 1: only imagine the fear that must come across. How do
Speaker 1: you say to someone, I'm too scared to do this.
Speaker 1: It's too frightening. There's too many barriers in my way.
Speaker 1: How do you say on a one to one basis, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you say to someone to say, I really
Speaker 1: think you should have this baby. It's your choice, but
Speaker 1: you got to you know, thinking over.
Speaker 3: We actually say tell us what the obstacles are, so
Speaker 3: we you will never hear one of our advocates say
Speaker 3: we think you should do this right, that's never going
Speaker 3: to come out of our mouth.
Speaker 2: But I will say, by and large, we're seeing housing
Speaker 2: that's a that's the biggest one.
Speaker 3: It's probably the largest one of how can I have
Speaker 3: another child? I'm currently sleeping in my car or I'm
Speaker 3: sleeping on someone's couch.
Speaker 2: How can I have a child?
Speaker 3: Housing is a huge one, and so we look into
Speaker 3: that and we're like, you know what, we partner with
Speaker 3: some incredible organizations. Let's see if we can help you
Speaker 3: find how I.
Speaker 1: Don't know if you guys partner with Catholic charities, but
Speaker 1: I've seen their facility that they have for young you know,
Speaker 1: moms and kids, and they stay for years there until
Speaker 1: they can really get their feet under them, and it's
Speaker 1: just such an impressive operation. And all of this stuff
Speaker 1: kind of flies under the radar. And I think part
Speaker 1: of it is because unfortunately this is so contentious, right,
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be. This should be a no brainer, like
Speaker 1: why shouldn't we want women to have baby? I just
Speaker 1: I don't understand why. It's it's such a hateful conversation sometimes,
Speaker 1: But I got a couple of ways. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get too long without talking about the gala and
Speaker 1: the golf tournament and everything else. You guys are bringing
Speaker 1: in a well known pro life advocate who has been
Speaker 1: very open with his mom about the fact that he
Speaker 1: was counseled. His mom was counseled to have an abortion
Speaker 1: and she just said no. And that guy is Tim Tebow. Yes,
Speaker 1: tell me about him coming into town.
Speaker 3: He is going to be here September fourteenth for a
Speaker 3: gala out at the Gaylord Rockies Convention Center, and we
Speaker 3: are going to have a live auction. You can even
Speaker 3: buy table sponsorships to get into a VIP meet and
Speaker 3: greet with Tim Tebow. And we had someone contact our
Speaker 3: development director and said, what do I have to do
Speaker 3: to meet Tim?
Speaker 2: He said, well, do I have a package for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he will be there on Sunday night for
Speaker 3: that event, and then the next day we are hosting
Speaker 3: a golf tournament and he is going to be at
Speaker 3: Cherry Creek Country Club. They have partnered with us and
Speaker 3: that's fantastic playing golf. We only have three foursomes still
Speaker 3: available for that. So the golf tournament is almost sold out,
Speaker 3: but we still have tables for the galab.
Speaker 2: Well, I have all of this information on the blog today.
Speaker 1: The gala is Sunday, September fourteenth, so it's in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks at six pm at the Gaylord Hotel.
Speaker 2: How much your tickets for that?
Speaker 3: A table is twenty and twenty two hundred and fifty dollars,
Speaker 3: an individual seat is two hundred and twenty five.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that is for that, and you got four
Speaker 1: I'm pulling up the fundraising on the website really quick,
Speaker 1: and you only have four foursomes for the golf Is
Speaker 1: it three seventy five or person?
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, I'm looking right now. Just makes sure so
Speaker 2: you probably won't go ahead and do that now.
Speaker 3: Yes, if you want to play the golf tournament, Like
Speaker 3: I said, Tim's going to be walking around, He's going
Speaker 3: to spend the entire day with us. Get on there today.
Speaker 3: Let's get it sold out.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of people that are texting in
Speaker 1: right now. By the way, if you love what you're
Speaker 1: hearing and you want to support this, you can say,
Speaker 1: set up a five dollars a month donation. You can
Speaker 1: set up a ten dollar a month donation. You can
Speaker 1: set up a one time donation for five million dollars.
Speaker 1: You do whatever you.
Speaker 2: Want to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just feel really good about making that
Speaker 1: last offer.
Speaker 2: In case Steve, I don't think like that. I just
Speaker 2: want to plant that seed.
Speaker 1: So whatever you can do, you can participate, you know,
Speaker 1: and you could do this, or you could just give
Speaker 1: a little money. Here's a couple of stories I want
Speaker 1: to share though. I think it's fascinating. Mandy twenty six
Speaker 1: years ago, my wife and I were forty years old,
Speaker 1: found out we were pregnant unplanned. We had an abortion
Speaker 1: appointment set up in the twelfth hour. I changed my
Speaker 1: mind and it took a lot of prayers and counsel
Speaker 1: with my wife to talk or into having the baby.
Speaker 1: Put a real strain between us. We had three children
Speaker 1: already went through with the pregnancy, and we have a
Speaker 1: beautiful adult woman now. I had to step up to
Speaker 1: the plate and do most of the parenting on the
Speaker 1: fourth child. Our marriage didn't survive, but I'm glad we
Speaker 1: didn't abort this one. As an adoptee born during the
Speaker 1: early days of Roe versus Wade. Thank you for bringing
Speaker 1: on a guest who shows actual voices and not a
Speaker 1: single agenda. So yes, as a guy, this guy says,
Speaker 1: I love this group, but it's hard to have a
Speaker 1: position on abortion. It's really not you, guys, it's really
Speaker 1: not one of my I think one of the most
Speaker 1: unfair things in the world are that women have to
Speaker 1: do the brunt of growing.
Speaker 2: That baby, because it's really hard.
Speaker 1: But it's also unfair because men don't get the really
Speaker 1: cool stuff about having a baby, little feet kicking from
Speaker 1: the inside. Dude, there's literally nothing in the world like it.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. But men should also get a say.
Speaker 3: Well, and I can speak to in my previous clinic,
Speaker 3: there was one summer we had three young men different
Speaker 3: pregnancy tests. All three of them were literally wailing in
Speaker 3: our waiting room because she was determined to get an
Speaker 3: abortion and he had no rights. He offered to support,
Speaker 3: he offered to provide a place to live, he offered
Speaker 3: for his parents to do it. In all three incidences,
Speaker 3: and a man has literally no say.
Speaker 2: That's just really, really sad it is.
Speaker 1: Alternatives Pregnancy Center is the place you want to put
Speaker 1: a link to all of this on the blog today.
Speaker 1: I so appreciate you, Ashley Graves and everyone involved with this,
Speaker 1: because it's really irritating to me when I hear people,
Speaker 1: and I hear this from friends of mine who are
Speaker 1: so staunchly pro choice to the moment of birth that
Speaker 1: they don't even want to hear that there are actual
Speaker 1: organizations who help and support women, not just in making
Speaker 1: that decision, but also throughout the pregnancy, after the baby
Speaker 1: is born, and helping people get a start on life.
Speaker 1: They exist, but they only exist because we support them.
Speaker 1: So yes, thank you so much for coming in today.
Speaker 2: Thank you. You guys are going to.
Speaker 1: Have an amazing event. Emma tell Tim, I said, Hi,
Speaker 1: I will